Keir, One Next Week!

 

Tories can’t find links to former party Leader and they hate it, 

(Daily Mirror text)

Next week marks the first anniversary of Keir Starmer's election as Labour leader.

It was Starmer's misfortune that he took over a bruised and demoralised party at the height of a pandemic.

Stamping your mark as the leader of the opposition is hard enough at the best of times but it is especially challenging when the public was calling on political leaders to work together in the national interest.

While navigating this tricky situation Starmer set himself two goals: to demonstrate that Labour was under new management and to start the long, arduous task of rebuilding the party's support.

The first he has accomplished reasonably well.

Boris Johnson's attempts at PMQs to link Starmer to the old leadership are unconvincing because the change is so obvious.

This has not been entirely painless. The left, understandably, are defensive of Corbyn's record and feel slighted.

There is criticism that Starmer, by trying to reach out to people who don't already vote for Labour, which is generally a good idea for parties that wish to win elections, is taking the left of the party for granted.

These grumbles have grown deeper as Labour struggles to eat into the Conservatives' stubbornly resilient poll lead.

Starmer passes what George Osborne has described as the Camp David test – he looks like a Prime Minister in waiting – but there are questions about his ability to inspire.

 

As the Times noted recently, when he was a lawyer he was deemed better in front of the judge than in front of the jury.

The leader's office is sanguine about the progress so far.

This primarily because of the way the pandemic has disrupted the political weather patterns.

The national conservation has been dominated by lockdowns, jab rates, travel plans and pub passports.

Starmer has not yet had the opportunity to address a packed party conference hall, denying him the chance to speak to the party faithful and the stage on which to introduce himself to the public.

Allies argue people do not know him because they have not yet had the chance to meet him.

 

What is an independent conservative?

In Northumberland, conservatives tend to follow their name and  ensure conservation and conservatism is front and centre in both their thinking and their actions.

Looking around at what the Conservatives with a capital C have conserved over the last four years in which they have run the single unitary county council for Northumberland, in the views of the many they have conserved everything but the Councils cash which they are famous for wasting and delivered nothing of worth anywhere in the County.

The brown and preserved furniture owners who make up Northumberland conservatives in office have ruined the finances of the County Council in support of their cronies and have been accused of corruption following the well reported unlawful suspension of the Council’s Chief Executive.

In Newsham we appear to have a new breed of Conservative who has popped up on a facebook page to tell everyone and anyone who is bothered to listen or read that he is an Independent Conservaitive.

That may be to separate himself from his tarnished cohorts at County Hall or it may be that his furniture isn’t brown enough  or he may have committed the primary sin of being black balled at the Lodge.

This new breed has been openly praising the local Tory MP and to that end we contacted the Labour County Councillor for Newsham Ward, Councillor Deirdre Campbell and asked her opinion, she told us.

“Its disappointing that Conservatives have to run and hide behind the independent badge, this man on his social media page is cosying up to Ian Levy MP and therefore a distinction between his politics and the Tory MP’s Levy’s politics is completely clouded in mystery and appears to be welded as one”.

“I suspect that he is simply waiting to stand at the post and be whipped by the Tories if he manages to win a seat so the question must be asked if this Tory calling himself an independent conservative is really in for following his name and is CONNING the public at large and the voters in Newsham who have been let down by the Tories at County Hall for the last four years and their Government for the last decade”. 

Why Tory decisions in favour of ADVANCE Northumberland will damage the County?

The recent well reported decision from Northumberland Conservatives to bail out the private company which replaced the former Labour regeneration platform ARCH which auditors could find nothing malicious to report on and the police found not to be involved in any criminal activity to transfer £8M of pubic money from the Adult Care reserve fund to bail out the company and its Chairperson Richard Wearmouth.

This obvious to most normal people gross misuse of public funds, covered up by the use of word ‘reserves’ by the Tories is not only damaging to the Council’s finances as a whole but it will hit many wards and eventually families and individuals across Northumberland very hard indeed as the County is home to an ageing population and the changes to integrated care being rolled out from September 2021 will require the use of those reserves to keep a basic service to elderly people running smoothly.

We caught up with Councillor Lynne Grimshaw who represents Bothal ward in Ashington South East Northumberland at the very edge of the rural coalfield, she told us.: “I was shocked when the news of this transfer of funds was announced by Councillor Oliver of Corbidge following Labour challenge against the use of Covid funds to cover ADVANCE’s failings.” 

“Bothal ward has a very high number of people of the third age and there is even an estate of social bungalows centred in the patch”.

“Funds for future elderly care will be needed very soon after the pandemic ends as local people in Bothal ward and across the County will require extra help to get themselves back into normal routines and the County Council adult care system which relies on day care and luncheon clubs requires those now spent reserves to bolster the reopening of premises and kitchens which may have stood idle for over a year”.

“in my view this move by the Tories is very short term thinking indeed and their methods of changing their minds when tackled by the Labour Leadership will bring enormous problems for the future.”

Where’s the Blyth Relief Road?

When last in power, Labour in Northumberland went all out to build a new northern relief road for Morpeth to ease pollution problems for residents in Morpeth improving their health and to ease pressure from the A189 by splitting the traffic attempting to access the A1 from the towns and villages which make up South East Northumberland and the rural coalfield.

Following on from the success of the new highway, cash was set aside by the Labour administration to set about designing and settling a route to build a relief road for the Counties largest Town, Blyth, to bring similar benefits for residents and reduce pollution levels on both Cowpen and Laverock Hall Road.

After a consultation period a finalised route was planned out and following the May 2017 local Government elections the incoming Tory administration ran out story after story about what they were going to deliver for Blyth.

The route is in two parts, an incoming route from the A189 and a cross town route along the old mineral line from Cowpen to Newsham. The Tories have recently been questioned by Labour Councillors and have had to admit there’s no cash for matched funding to develop this highway.

Cowpen County Council candidate Margaret Richardson spoke with us to express her disdain, after visiting the site of the cross town road in Cowpen she said: “It is typical of how the Tories treat residents in the Town of Blyth”. “They have promised the earth since 2017 and only delivered the tarmacing of one piece of road in Cowpen over the last four years.”

“Their accounts are a shambles and they have spent over £100m on roads in rural areas yet can't produce enough cash to match the Highways Agency funding for this project and have sent it back to rot on their shelves but can find £8m to bail out their mates at ADVANCE Northumberland”.

“If elected on May 6th I will fight tooth and nail to get this highways project off the ground and begin to improve the health of Cowpens residents who have suffered an extra four years from the pollution problems brought about by the abandonment of this project and the Tories ungenuine back turning plan they have run out against Blyth for the last four years!”

Tories hold back on road safety plans of dedicated Labour Community Councillor?

Taken Pre Covid

Councillor Kath Nisbet of Croft Ward in Blyth is disgusted at the slow progress the Tory led Northumberland County Council has made on a road safety project in the ward she represents.

Over a year ago Councillor Nisbet paid two thousand pound from her small schemes pot to have a safer entry into the Cowpen Quay area from Hodgsons Road via Durban Street designed and an estimate of costs prepared.

The estimate came out at £31,000 which she immediately agreed to fund, the works included the removal of a tree and the re-siting of a ‘home zone’ infrastructure island which is now past its best.

Councillor Nisbet explained to us at Northumbria News that “the creation of a home zone almost twenty years ago to slow dangerous fast traffic in the area of Cowpen Quay was an excellent modern idea at the time, but the community has now outgrown the project and as time has moved on better and far safer for everyone traffic calming methods have been designed and implemented.”

“A local shopkeeper has moved his premises across the Durban Street entrance on Hodgsons Road and admirably opened up a two car stopping place in front of his premises, but at peak times cars have begun to park right up to the tree and home zone island causing problems for drivers and pedestrians”

“The new design favoured by the County Council highways section as well as the community will benefit everyone and ease concerns for pedestrians who cross here to gain access to the bus stop on Hodgsons Road.”

“Its a disgrace that myself and my community have had to wait for over a year to have this project begun and those same Tories who have held up this job are making claims about me not spending my small scheme cash to benefit my Community, if this job had been in Morpeth or Ponteland it would have been done before the estimate came back”.

“It shows that Blyth has had nothing delivered in the last four years by these Tories who are hell bent on expanding deprivation and developing a two tier society in towns like ours”